Grozny

Grozny or Groznyy (both: grôzˈnē) [key], city (2006 est. pop. 230,000), capital of Chechnya, SE European Russia, in the northern foothills of the Greater Caucasus. It is the center of Chechnya's oil fields, linked by pipelines to Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea, to Tuapse on the Black Sea, and to Horlivka in Ukraine. One of Russia's oldest oil-producing areas (production began in 1893), Grozny was a major strategic goal of invading German armies in World War II. Soviet troops halted the German advance just short of the city. Fighting between the Russian army and Chechen separatists devastated the city in the mid-1990s and again in 1999, and the resulting bloodshed, destruction, and lawlessness led roughly three quarters of the residents to flee. A decade later, however, the city had undergone extensive reconstruction, and the population had returned to near pre-conflict levels.